Autodidact: (n) a self-taught person. Poet: (n) a person who writes poetry.
Autodidactpoet: (n) A blog full of thoughts from a self-taught writer.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

One bed two bed, Red bed blue bed?

I know you've been waiting eagerly on the edge of your seat
since yesterday afternoon, dying to read my post about my trip.I mean, seriously, with a teaser like the one
I gave, how could you not be?

My sister and I decided to go on a trip to the beach this
weekend.It's something we've wanted to
do for a long time, we're only 2 hours from the beach, it was a holiday
weekend, and...I mean seriously, who passes up the beach?There was drama in the planning and drama in
the making it happen, but we did.We
made it happen.I found a hotel that would
take dogs and decided it would just be easiest to take my dog (Marshall, or
Mo-Man, as he is sometimes called).I
made a reservation a day or so before and we were set.It was all going to be awesome.

So down we drove.Took us a little over 2 hours to get there with Bay Bridge traffic, and
we decided to first check into the hotel and plan things out.

Let me back up: we were going to the beach, yes, but when
people talk about "going to the beach," this is not usually the beach
they are talking about.This is the
beach we went to when we were kids.The
one at Betterton.You
know...Betterton.It's right past Still
Pond.And Lynch.Never heard of Still Pond or Lynch?That's okay.I saw a T-shirt once that said "Where the hell is
Betterton?"On the back it said,
"It's 16 miles from Still Pond."The first time we went to Betterton, we had a map drawn by my
grandfather.On it, he labeled
"Lynch," which my mother read as "lunch," so we drove and
drove and drove past corn and corn and corn and some railroad tracks and more
corn, all looking for a place to eat lunch.There was none.Because there's
nothing in Lynch.There is no lunch to
be had in Lynch.Similarly, there's also
nowhere to stop and pee between Betterton and Rock Hall (a supposed 17 miles on
the sign that always takes upwards of 40 minutes to drive, for god only knows
what reason).A lady at the general
store with the meat hanging out and turning green with the flies on it told us
that she has her grandchildren just run in the cornfield.There are cornfields.That's the one thing that you can find
between Betterton and Rock Hall.And
between Still Pond and Lynch.And
between pretty much everything else.

There's not a hotel in Betterton, so we were staying in
Chestertown, which is about 20 miles away.It's not far.You go down the one
road until you get to the low gray building with the sign with the cow on it,
you turn left and drive through Lynch and over the railroad tracks till you see
the billboard that says "Give blood, eat cookies, save lives...in
Chestertown."Turn left again and
drive till the stop sign at the place where the country store used to be, turn
left there and drive until you get to the stop sign near the "Soap and
Suds."Turn right and then just go
straight till you hit the water.There
are signs sometimes.Other than that,
this was all me recollecting from when I was 17 years old.Luckily, I have pretty good visual-spatial
skills.

But I digress.We
pulled into the hotel, and immediately my body went into hyper-alert mode.Something just felt...off.My sister walked Mo-Man and I went inside to
check in.It was dark, it smelled damp
and vaguely like dirty feet, and there was a noisy window unit air conditioner
that

seemed to be drawing its last breath attempting to cool the place.I walked to the desk and no one was
there.There was a phone on the counter
that said "For ck-in/ck-out, pick up phone."There was also a bell that said, "for
assistance ring bell."There was
also a sign that said "Have seat, we be with you shortly."I stood, looking from instruction to
instruction to instruction, pondering which one to follow, when I suddenly
heard a grumpy, deep, male, Indian voice saying, "hello hello hello
hello..."This was funny only
because I couldn't see anybody.I kept
looking, but it was dark, there was a glare from the front window, and I
couldn't figure out where to look. It was also funny because he said it with the same intonation as Ranjit from "How I Met Your Mother." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIjw0vLoMF4)

"Hello?" I said.

"Yes!Hello!" the voice came back, angrily. Not so much like Ranjit.

"Hello," I said, "uh...I'm here
to...uh..."

And then he appeared.A tall, unshaven, overweight Indian man with a thick accent in a stained
white undershirt with holes in it who was, I swear to God, itching himself
in...places I teach my kids not to itch themselves in public.

This was definitely not Ranjit.

"Hello," he said again."You come after long time, eh?"

I paused.After long
time.It really wasn't so long.It was only 3:30, after all.Long time from what?Long time from home?Long time from when I was supposed to check
in?Long time from the last time he
thinks I was here (although I've never been here)?"I'm sorry?" I said, not knowing
what else to say.

"No! No sorry!Sorry what?You COME after long TIME, eh?"

"Oh..." I said, smiling to let him know I'm
friendly."Yes."

"Is long time," he said again."Oh yes," I said again.He smiled.He was missing teeth.It made him
look worse when he smiled.You know when
a movie gets scary, like when 2 girls are checking into a sleazy hotel and the
hotel clerk smiles and says something like "it's so good to have you
staying with us" or something, then you know shit is going down?That's what that felt like.

"I'm checking in," I say, and I give him my name.

"Okay, you smoking?"

"N..."

"Okay, you one bed?Two bed?Big bed?One big bed?One big bed okay?"

"Yes, one big bed is..."

"YOU SMOKE?" he asks, seemingly frustrated.

"No," I say."No smoking."

"Okay!"He
punched keys on the keyboard, seeming to get more pissed off by the second."WHAT YOU WANT?One bed?Two bed?What you want?ONE BED?????"He looks out the window and sees my sister
and Mo-Man.

"That you friend?"His lip seemed to curl.

"No, that's my sister."

"Ah.Girlfriend?"He looked at me out of the corner of his
eye..

"No, sister.She's my sister," I clarify.Again.

"Oh, sister...you have boyfriend?"He smiles.I ponder this for a moment.The
answer is no, but I don't want him to know that.I also don't want him to think boyfriend will
be joining us, in which case, we would probably have to revisit the one bed/two
bed, big bed/little bed situation."Have
boyfriend?Yes, no?"

"No," I answer quickly, "no boyfriend."

"Oh...not good not good, no boyfriend, very sad, not
good," he says.I continue to stand
there, awkwardly."OKAY!TWO BED!I GIVE TWO BED!"He punches
the button like he's trying to see if he can crush it, and he breathes heavily,
seeming to suck all the oxygen and cool air out of the room.

"That's just fine," I assure him, reminding myself
to breathe.

"Okay, you want nice room?I give you nice room.Number 32.Very nice room.Is good room.No...33...no...32...Three-two.Three two.For you.Three two."He asks for my ID and my credit card, I sign
the receipt, ask what time I need to check out by in the morning, ask if there
is anything else I need to do, he says no and I walk out.As I'm trying to fill my sister in on the
sketchiness of the place as we stand outside, I hear a yelling inside and
turn.Mr. Two-Bed is waving his arms and
making noise.Figuring he needed me for
something else, I start to go back in, but he starts making a movement that
looks like he is waving me away.I give
him a little wave and walk back outside.He makes noise again.I turn and
give him another wave.He continues
making noise, so I walk in.

"Do you need me?" I ask."Why you not come!I call you!You need sign other
receipt!" He practically spits the words out.I feel my sympathetic nervous system (the
fight or flight response) taking over my body, and I am consciously taking deep
breaths so my hands don't shake when I take the pen.He dismisses me again with a flick of his
hand.It requires conscious effort not
to sprint out of the place.

We find the room, unlock the door and go in.Problem number 1: the curtain is half falling
off of the window.Problem number 2: it
looks like it hasn't been renovated since the 80s.Or possibly before.Problem number 3: there's a gang symbol and
graffiti in the bathroom by the light switch.Problem number 4: the door doesn't lock well.As in, half of the little latchy thingy up
top is missing, there is light visible under the door, there is visible space
between the door and the door frame, and the whole damn thing wiggles.

And that is when I lost it.

See, my risk tolerance is improving, but it's generally pretty
low.Or...really low. I know that about myself.I frequently try to improve it by doing
things that make me uncomfortable, just to prove to myself that I can.I know I SHOULD listen to my gut sometimes,
but lots of times, my gut is saying "aaaaaack!" and
"eeeeek" and "RUN!" when it really doesn't need to.You get to a point sometimes where you just
don't know anymore.Is this a fake "aaack" or an
unrealistic "eeeeek?" I try to ask myself.But your sympathetic nervous system doesn't
discriminate.It says "RUN"
when you think you hear a weird sound behind you that might have just been a
squirrel, or a fan, or your imagination, and it also says "RUN" when
there's a creepy hotel with a smelly guy with no teeth, gang signs, and a
crappy door.It's crazy out of context,
but those "RUN!" feelings feel the same in both situations.It's hard to know which is the "suffer
this out and become a stronger person" feeling and which is the
"suffer this out and possibly die in the process" feeling. It all feels like "suffer and
die."I'm not kidding.

(*SPOILER ALERT* ...I'm still alive).

So my sister and I sat down and assessed the situation.We couldn't reach a consensus.I was ready to go back to Mr. ONE-BED-TWO-BED
and try to get our money back.If that
couldn't happen, I was ready to go back over the Bay Bridge and go home.But I also wanted to be brave.I lost sight of what was legitimate fear
versus unnecessary fear.I decided I was
overreacting, and that if I could just get myself to breathe right, it was all
going to be fine.We decided to go for a
walk on the beach.I kept telling myself
that after being away from the hotel for a while, and after getting used to the
idea, I would calm down.I would decide
it was okay.I would stop flipping out
about the gang sign, and the door with crappy locks, and the man with no teeth
in the dark lobby that smelled like dirty feet who now knows that I don't have
a boyfriend and thinks my sister and I are lovers staying in two beds with a 26
lb little white dog.

My sister and I would walk and talk, and then one of us
would say, "it's all fine because..." and come up with a reason.But it wasn't fine.It wasn't.Eventually, I suggested we just hang it up and either (a) try to find
another hotel or (b) just go home.I
admitted that I was so anxious about it I was nauseated and on the verge of
tears.

"How about if we just stay," my sister said."I mean, what's really going to
happen?We're in Chestertown,
afterall."

2 comments:

Obviously this wasn't funny to you, but it's a funny story. Because you're obviously alive. And your sister had a point. You WERE in Chestertown. THAT doesn't sound like the name of a town in a horror movie. ;-)

About Me

"My continuing passion is to part a curtain,
that invisible shadow that falls between people,
the veil of indifference to each other's presence,
each other's wonder, each other's human plight."
Eudora Welty